Today's News

People my age and older like to talk about the “good old days” before bike helmets, safe playgrounds and after-school activities when kids were free to run wild in the neighborhood, knock their noggins on asphalt and skin their knees with abandon.

I’ve been known to do that before, but even I have to admit, now that I’m a mom of an energetic 6-year-old, that it’s better to be safe than sorry.

I was a little girl, watching the movie “Ghostbusters” with my family. Everything was going OK for me until this scary woman came on the screen. She was perfectly normal until—BAM. She became possessed—and a little crazy.

With her face twisted up and her hair askew, she thrashed and screamed, “I am the gatekeeper!”

The West Brunswick baseball team begins the Class 3-A state playoffs Friday night at home against Wilson Hunt. West is the top 3-A seed in the Mideastern Conference. If it wins Friday, it will play a second-round game Tuesday at home, possibly against another top seed, D.H. Conley.

For West coach Mike Alderson, a lack of competitive games heading into the playoffs is his main concern. West’s last game was May 6, when it beat Jacksonville 15-1 in five innings.

Coaches describe Caleb Hawkins as a popular athlete, a leader who inspired his younger teammates because he competed to his fullest ability.

Hawkins was one of three West Brunswick athletes in a single-car wreck May 7. He was the most severely injured of the three athletes and May 12 he was taken off life support at New Hanover Regional Medical Center. He was an organ donor.

Four of the five passengers in the fatal car wreck May 7 are part of the West Brunswick High School wrestling team. Three of them are wrestlers—Caleb Hawkins, Joey Moreno and Dylan Bernier. The other—Jessica Solomon—is the team statistician.

Hawkins and Moreno remained hospitalized Friday night. Hawkins was reported to be in a coma. Bernier had returned home.